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  • Edge-On Galaxy NGC 5866
  • Arp 188 - The Tadpole Galaxy
  • The HCG 59 Group of Galaxies
  • Stephan's Quintet
  • Sizes of Galaxies
  • Sizes of Galaxies II
  • Sizes of Galaxies III
  • Supernova 1994D in NGC 4526
  • Our Local Group
  • Milky Way-Andromeda collision as seen from Earth
  • Milky Way - Andromeda Collision
  • NGC 2683 - The UFO Galaxy
  • Antennae Galaxies colliding
  • Centaurus A
  • The Centre of Centaurus A
  • Virgo Cluster
  • Coma Cluster of Galaxies
  • Structure of the universe 1
  • Structure of the universe 2
  • Structure of the universe 3
  • Structure of the universe 4
  • Fly-through the Millennium Simulation
  • Evolution of the universe
  • Reionization of the Universe
  • The Hubble Ultra Deep Field

This is a great example of two galaxies in the process of merging. It all started a few hundred million years ago, when the two galaxies came so close that they started to interact. When they "touched", a lot of the gas inside the galaxies was compressed and immense star formation began. There are billions of stars that are being and will be formed during the collision. Almost half of all the faint objects you can see in this image are still huge star clusters containing tens of thousands of stars. You can see a lot of these blue star-forming regions which are surrounded by red, glowing gas (emission nebulae).

You can also see both of the original cores of the galaxies, the yellow/orange parts of the image, almost spherical regions with diameters of several thousand light years. These regions contain a lot of old stars, that's why they are orange. Remember that the most massive, blue stars die young and after some billions of years only the old yellow, orange and red stars survive. The brownish filaments in this image are dust, so there is still plenty of material for new stars and planets to form.


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Antennae Galaxies colliding
Published by Published or last modified on 2024-05-22
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